Between the Devil and Ian Eversea (10 page)

Everyone seemed to have arrested what they were doing in order to hear this conversation.

The backs of her hands and her neck began to heat.

“It’s fascinating. The book.”

It wasn’t. She’d read a chapter or two, gamely, but the author had contrived to make what was probably a fascinating or at least quite violent and bloody subject seem like a punishment.

“Are you about to tell us about it?” Ian said this pleasantly, but he sneaked a look at the clock over the mantel. And back at her. As if he were formulating an excuse to escape.

“What’s this about Richard the Third?” Colin asked. “Ian hasn’t willingly set foot in our library since he got in trouble for sneaking peeks at father’s anatomy books. Ian enjoys climbing trees,” he added, “and riding.”

Ian flicked an amused warning look in his brother’s direction before returning his gaze to her.

Another of those references to
climbing
.

Tansy felt her eyes burning with mortification. He could at least have the decency to look away while she flushed, slowly, to the roots of her hair, and while her face slowly caught on fire, or so it felt.

But no. Instead he watched, with mild dispassionate interest, much the way he might watch the sunset or the sunrise.

Boor
, she reminded herself.

Still, she found herself saying, “You can have it, if you like.”

“The . . . book?” He looked mystified.

She nodded, mutely. Slowly extended it.

His hands reached out. He took it gingerly.

“Thank you, Miss Danforth,” he said gravely.

“You’re welcome.”

He stared at her a moment longer, and when it seemed she’d say nothing else, he returned his attention to the chessboard.

The alps. Ice skating. Snowbanks.

She tried to think of very cold things in the hopes that the flames in her cheeks would vanish.

Ian Eversea’s heart.

Ah, how about that? That was working.

L
ATER, MUCH LATER,
after everyone retired one by one and she had waited because she didn’t like to be alone, Tansy returned to her bedroom and was startled by the sight of flowers in a vase.

Ha, Ian Eversea! Take that!
Evidence that she was, indeed, appreciated. Desired, even! By not just one man, but by four! That she
did
possess grace and charm and
could
captivate. She stared at the flowers, waiting for a certain triumph to build.

She groaned and dropped her face into her hands and rocked it to and fro. It was no use. She relived the moment, as if it had stretched torturously in time: her hand stretching out the book to him and his baffled face as he took it. Indulging her, as if she were a foolish little girl.

She blew out a breath, and then yanked off her slippers. One at a time.

And then she hurled them at the wall.

Wham
.

Wham
.

“ ‘You can have it if you like,’ ” she mimicked herself to herself. “Oh, good heavens, what a fool I am!”

But throwing the slippers had made her feel marginally better.

Then she stalked over to the desk and settled in.

She fanned out the sheet of foolscap and read it to herself as if it were a spell she could conjure right then and there.

How would
anyone
come to know her? To see her? To love her?

She dipped the quill into ink and wrote.

Has known a loss or two.

She’d begun to suspect it mattered.

Chapter 10

S
OME KIND OF THUMP
made Ian struggle to the surface from sleep, choking like a half-drowned man, thrashing at his sheets as if he were digging out from an avalanche.

He lay still again.

His lungs sawed greedily for air as he fought his way to the surface of consciousness.

Bloody. Hell.

As he always did, he waited for his breathing to steady, for his heart to quit hammering away like an inmate beating on the bars of a cell.

He peeled the sweat-soaked sheets away from his torso, let the blessed cool air wash over his bare skin. He touched his fingers to the scar at his abdomen. It rather resembled the path that meandered to the Pig & Thistle from the Eversea house, right down to the way it was raised more at the end, like the little hill where the Marquess of Dryden had been shot not long ago. Chase had pointed out the resemblance to the road when they compared scars. Ian figured he could always follow it like a map back to the Eversea house if he drank a bit too much at the pub.

If he didn’t stretch regularly and often enough, it drew all the muscles around it taut as a miser’s purse strings and he could count on a day or so of agony, solvable only by hard liquor and a soft woman and a hot bath.

It had been dug there by a bayonet on the day of his greatest triumph and his greatest failure.

There were other scars, too, but this was the only one that liked to make its presence known, as surely as if it were another organ. His heart pumped blood, his lungs moved air in and out, and the scar’s job was to never let him forget.

The room still felt too close—it was smaller than his own room, and the curtains were heavier—so he heaved his body out of bed and was at the window in a few strides. He shoved it open.

He peered out the window.

And one balcony over . . .

. . . well, damned if that wasn’t Miss Danforth.

And how had no one noticed he was sleeping in the room next to
hers
? Surely the duke would have made sure one or the other of them had been removed to a room at the opposite side of the house posthaste.

He decided then and there, however, that he wouldn’t request his room be moved. He would stay right where he was.

Lamplight poured out the open window, and she had brought a lamp with her onto the balcony.

Her chin was propped on her fists and she was gazing out over the Eversea grounds, which from her vantage point rolled almost as far as the eye could see. She looked smaller than usual, rather slumped in a manner that was almost defeated. For the first time it occurred to him that the sparkle she seemed to bring everywhere with her resulted from some effort, rather than some supernatural source of charm allotted to her in exchange for selling her soul to the devil.

She tipped her head back, like a bird gulping water. She seemed to be scanning the skies above, for a sign, perhaps, from Heaven. It
was
entirely possible she had some sort of nervous tic. She’d been doing that in the ballroom, too. Or perhaps she was subject to nosebleeds.

And then she lowered her head again, and her shoulders dropped, and her hands disappeared for a moment as she appeared to rummage around somewhere out of sight.

She produced a small pouch and propped it on the edge of the balcony.

And then she removed from the pouch a scrap of something.

What the devil . . . ?

It couldn’t be.

Oh, but it was.

It was a
cigarette
paper.

He watched, fascinated and appalled as she expertly ran her tongue down it. Then she flattened it on the balcony edge, shook a little tobacco in a slim line down it. To his wondering eyes . . . she rolled it as adeptly as any soldier.

She held it beneath her nose, closed her eyes, and her shoulders rose and fell as she inhaled deeply.

Holy
Mother of—

Ian gave a start when someone knocked on his chamber door. He swore under his breath and ducked back from the curtain.

Yanking the door open, he found a footman there, holding a tray bearing the brandy he’d rung earlier for, as well as a sheet of folded foolscap on a tray. “A message for you, Mr. Eversea.”

He flipped it open so quickly he nearly sliced his fingers.

“ ‘I will in all likelihood take rooms at the Pig & Thistle whilst I’m in Sussex,’ ” he read aloud.

It was signed
LC
.

Who the devil was . . .

Lady Carstairs.

He’d nearly forgotten about Lady Carstairs.

Beautiful. Brunette. Unusual tastes.

“Yesthankyouverymuchgood-bye.”

He shut the door in the startled footman’s face and, message in his hand, bolted to the window and peered out.

Surely he’d dreamed that. But she was gone, and the wind was sweeping away a few stray flakes of tobacco.

I
T WAS NO
use. Just past midnight Tansy threw off her blankets with a long sigh, rolled from her bed and shoved her feet into her slippers. Then she knelt to fish about in one of her trunks and came up with a pair of painted tin soldiers that had once belonged to her brother. She held them gently, and smiled faintly. As much as she cherished the memory of playing soldiers with her brother, she was certain he would rather they saw active duty, so to speak, rather than languish an eternity as mementos. He would have teased her for her sentimentality, anyway.

Soldiers in hand, she seized a candle and progressed down the shadowy hallways to the kitchen.

It was time, if at all possible, to obtain a few answers, or she would likely never sleep a night through again.

Mrs. deWitt was sitting at the table, spectacles perched on her nose, poring over a book of what appeared to be accounts, muttering to herself. “. . . beef for Thursday . . .”

She looked up and shoved over a plate of scones, as if she’d been anticipating Tansy’s arrival, and stood to put the kettle on.

Tansy settled in. “Are you going over the accounts?”

“Aye. ’Tis a fine bit of balancing, doin’ the budget, though it’s generous enough. What’s that ye’ve got in yer ’and, there, Miss Danforth?”

“I thought Jordy might like to have these. They were my brother’s.”

She pushed the soldiers over to her.

Miss deWitt’s eyes went wide with surprise and then she beamed meltingly. “Ah, the boy ought to ’ave some toys. Ye’ve the heart of an angel, Miss Danforth, to think of a wee servant boy.”

Tansy regally waved away the compliment, but she blushed with pleasure. “I did the accounts after my parents passed away.”

“Did ye now?” Mrs. deWitt looked up, sympathy written all over her face.

“I liked it, I discovered.”

“ ’Tis a bit like a puzzle, isn’t it? Deciding what you ought to buy and how much you’ll need and so forth?”

“Oh, it is.” She’d needed to pension off some of the servants and decide who would remain as a small crew to keep the house open. She’d held difficult conversation after difficult conversation. She’d expected to be overwhelmed, it had instead been a respite. The quiet moments in the kitchen, discussing the day-to-day running of the house with the small staff, was nearly meditative, and she’d found comfort in their voices and company.

“How are you getting on, Miss Danforth?”

“Everyone is quite wonderful.” She said this with the same ceremony as she would have said “Amen.” It was precisely what she ought to say, she knew.

This made Mrs. deWitt beam.

She bit into the scone. “Heaven on a plate, Mrs. deWitt! I could eat these every day of my life.”

“Thank you, my dear. You know how to warm an old soul’s heart. Now, are you enjoying your time with the family?”

“Oh yes! They’re all very charming. And there are so many of them and I’m still trying to remember everyone’s names. Let me see. Now . . . Colin is married to Madeleine, yes? The lovely dark-haired woman?”

“He is indeed, and a dear girl she is, so clever and kind and quiet.”

“And Marcus is married to Louisa? She’s so pretty, isn’t she?”

“Oh, my, yes, indeed! And two people more perfect for each other cannot be found anywhere on the face of this earth!”

“And there’s Genevieve married to the duke . . .”

Mrs. deWitt sighed happily. “Such a love story, that one, and what a grand man.”

“And then there’s Ian and . . .”

Mrs. deWitt’s gaze drifted. “Well, would you look at that time? We ought to be in bed, the two of us.”

She stood up and began bustling about, pushing utensils and crockery around the kitchen rather aimlessly.

“And then there’s
Ian and . . .”
Tansy repeated stubbornly.

Mrs. deWitt went still in the midst of shuffling.

And then at last she sighed heartily and turned, slowly, in resignation.

“Now, child, I can tell you this: ye dinna want your head turned by that one.”

“Ha!” Tansy laughed unconvincingly. “Ha ha! My head turned! I ask you! My head is on straight, thank you very much. I was simply curious.”

There was a long hesitation during which the cook regarded her shrewdly and Tansy reflected back nothing but bland innocence. She’d perfected the look when she was a little girl.

“God love ’im,” the cook sighed at last. “The boy is trouble.”

Tansy’s heart stood still. This was going to be
good
.

Or awful.

“He’s not a boy,” she said thoughtfully, before she could think better of it.

Mrs. deWitt looked at her sharply.

“Aye, that he ain’t. ’E’s a man, and he’s been to war and back, and to London and back, and men are shaped by the things they find in both places, aye? For good or for ill. I’ve seen it time and again. Ye’ve only to look at the lad, and . . . well, my own old heart turns over when he smiles, and that’s the truth. He gets what he wants just that way. ’E’s good at heart but ’e’s a restless one, and any woman who pins her hopes to him is asking for heartbreak, or my name isn’t Margaret deWitt.”

Tansy suspected the cook’s name really was Margaret deWitt.

She remembered again the look Ian had exchanged with the lovely dark-haired woman at the ball. All silent, understood innuendo, swift and expert and sophisticated, as if Tansy wasn’t even there and didn’t matter. And a hot little rock of some nameless but deeply unpleasant emotion took up residence in her stomach. Jealousy. Or shame. Definitely from the same family tree as those two emotions.

She didn’t like to think of herself as one of legion.

She didn’t like to think of Ian Eversea bedding and breaking the hearts of a legion.

Or of anyone, for that matter.

She didn’t want to think of herself foolish enough, ordinary enough, to fall just like any other woman.

Nor had she ever in her life thought of herself as a fool.

She risked the question anyway, even though she didn’t really want to hear the answer.

“
Has
any woman pinned her hopes . . . ?”

“Oh, a host of them, I daresay. Beginning with poor Theodosia Brackman back when the boy was just fifteen. Then there was—”

“A list won’t be necessary,” Tansy said hurriedly. Her imagination filled it in, anyway. She expected the list of names all began with
poor.
“Poor Theodosia Brackman, poor Jenny Smith, poor Tansy Danforth . . .”

She’d never been
anyone’s
poor
anything
.

“. . . and one hears things about—” Mrs. deWitt lowered her voice to a whisper. “—certain kinds of women in London.”

She wasn’t
that
sheltered. She was certain she knew what “certain kinds of women” meant.

Worse and worse.

Mrs. deWitt probably ought not say such things to her, but probably thought she needed a powerful warning.

It was unpleasant to hear, yet she indeed needed to hear it, the way she needed cod liver oil on occasion. It would do her good. Perhaps it would cure her of what was in all likelihood a passing condition, which, given that it made her charmless, stuttery, and given to blushes, had nothing at all to recommend it. And given that he was indifferent to her charms, was really rather a waste of time. And her talents.

Besides, she was destined for a duke, wasn’t she?

She wanted a husband, a family and a home, and it was time to cease wasting her time on thoughts of Ian Eversea.

She returned to her bedchamber filled with scone and resolve, yet her legs and heart felt heavier, somehow, as if she were returning to walking on the ground after a little sojourn in the clouds.

S
HE OPENED HER
eyes just before dawn again, wondering, before memory set in, why she felt low-spirited.

Then she recalled her figurative dose of cod liver oil from the night before.

And sighed.

The little rosy strip of light lay where it usually did, beckoning her to walk it.

She debated breaking herself of the habit. It would be the mature and sane thing to do. But the gentle little sunbeam road lay there on the carpet, and she found herself sliding from the bed to follow it, the way an animal has no choice but to follow an intriguing scent. She gently parted the curtains.